Senate Votes to Declassify Parts of CIA Torture Report

(CN) – Key sections of the so-called torture report face release after the Senate Intelligence Committee voted 11-3 Thursday to declassify a 480-page executive summary and 20 conclusions. The committee prepared the secret 6,200 report after a five-year investigation of the CIA’s “extended” interrogation practices. Though Thursday’s vote slates more than 500 pages for release, they will remain secret, possibly for months, pending review by the CIA and the president. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the committee, noted in a statement that the review was conducted to uncover the facts behind the CIA’s secret program of subjecting terrorism suspects to waterboarding and other harsh tactics. She called the results of the study “shocking.” “The report exposes brutality that stands in stark contrast to our values as a nation,” Feinstein said in a statement. “It chronicles a stain on our history that must never again be allowed to happen. This is not what Americans do.” Three Senate Republicans – James Risch of Idaho, Dan Coats of Indiana and Marco Rubio of Florida – voted against declassification. Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican who is set to retire amid a battle with cancer, voted present. McClatchy reported that the still-secret report found that the CIA illegally detained 26 of the 119 captives in its custody, and that CIA officers subjected some captives to interrogation methods not approved by either the agency or the Justice Department. The Senate committee concluded the extended interrogation techniques did not uncover important intelligence information, and that the CIA misled Congress and the president about the effectiveness of the program. Sen. Angus King, an Independent from Maine, told the Washington Post that the report convinced him the CIA had tortured some of its captives. “I don’t have any doubts on that fact,” King said. “It’s a pretty hard read. It’s very disappointing.”